The Faces of EXD’11 feature spotlights people related to the biennale. This week, designers from VIVÓEUSÉBIO, graphic designers for Useless? The Wandering Pain, let us in on their views and experience.

What brings you all to Lisbon?AA: Joana is from Évora, Giuseppe is from Milan, the rest of us are from here, and stayed here after studying together at the Fine Arts University of Lisbon because it’s the best place in terms of oportunity. After that, we started finding work through VIVÓEUSÉBIO, a project we developed after we graduated.

Useless is beyond function, it means that things are not obstacles, they have elbow room. They do not take part in the tyranny of the Modern, that is to say they defy quantification and pricing. They are full of a celebration of engagement with the eye, bristle with multifarious possible applications – all slightly awry. They rejoice in their difference, their exceptional natures outside the flow of most things – they become poetics built on a fleeting desirous love affair with the eye, the body and the mind.

Useless objects are convulsive objects. The more useless this book is, the longer it will be cherished.

The Action for Age creative lab has been developed simultaneously in Lisbon and London. The portuguese edition of this innovative intergerational project has been supported by the biennale through its last editions, and this year was no exception. 12 ideas were selected from the 22 schools that entered the national competition launched on October 2010, and Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian now has the outputs from the chosen projects on show. See some of the chosen Action for Age projects in this weekly photo essay feature.

Only two weeks from the biennale’s end, the USELESS blog recommends you do more at EXD’11. Since the biennale’s opening week from September 28th, Lisbon was the stage for conferences, lectures, exhibitions, tangents, interventions and parties, all revolving around the USELESS theme and its meaning in an architecture, design and culture context. So if you don’t want to miss out on any of its exciting contents, follow our suggestions for a week at EXD’11.

Geographer and college professor Álvaro Domingues, author of Rua da Estrada, was a guest at the Utilitas I: ”The architecture of misfortune and natural disaster.” last Saturday. Following Utilitas Interrupta‘s theme, we’d like to share some of his photographs and thoughts on cases of failed infrastructural projects in Portugal.

About this blog

USELESS is the official blog of the EXD’11/LISBOA design biennale, which takes takes place from September 28 to November 27 in the Portuguese capital. Dedicated to design, architecture and creativity, the biennale promotes debate and reflection around the theme Useless. The complete programme includes four main exhibitions, the Lisbon Lectures, the Open Talks, a film cycle and other Special Projects, in a total of 25 core events which will take Lisbon by storm during the biennale's 61 days.